The invention lies in the field of regulating an engine.
It applies in privileged but non-limiting manner to controlling a rocket engine.
In general, regulated engines respond to external setpoints, with the regulation law serving to adjust orders that are applied to valves so as to tend to bring the engine to the operating point that complies with the setpoints, and so as to keep it there.
For example, in a rocket engine, a setpoint for increasing thrust, when applied to the regulator, has the effect of correcting the positions of valves so as to increase the variable that is representative of pressure in the combustion chamber of the engine.
In the present state of the art, servo-controlling actuators, e.g. valves, requires expensive electronics, since such actuators require fast actuation speeds in order to provide effective control with very short transients.
As a result, valve actuators usually have a large passband and a high electrical power rating, thereby requiring their position to be controlled continuously relative to the setpoint and thus requiring control electronics that are dedicated to a local servo-control loop, which is expensive in terms of the electronics and the energy used for control purposes.
The present invention seeks to respond to this problem by using slow actuators that are controlled in bang-bang mode and that do not require complex electronics. It is recalled that control in bang-bang mode is on/off control.